Anthropic won a federal court ruling that vacated the Pentagon’s supply chain risk label and permanently barred the government from acting on it, on findings of First Amendment retaliation and a Fifth Amendment due process violation. Judge Rita Lin wrote in her 59-page order that the government’s evidence was slim and that it wanted to make an example of Anthropic for criticizing the administration, which made the designation arbitrary and capricious. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth imposed the label on February 27, the day Trump ordered agencies off Anthropic, after the company refused to drop terms keeping Claude out of fully autonomous lethal weapons and mass surveillance of Americans. Anthropic stays designated for now, since a parallel D.C. suit over a second rule is undecided.
